Student life

Residential halls may be the greatest experiment in American democracy. In the same way that many people argue the military draft once performed a unique function in mixing people together, residential halls may be one of the few places that truly do this in American society. At the very least, they are certainly one of our under-leveraged assets for civic learning.

Each year, students arrive on our campuses and move into residential halls. Typically, we pack lots of students into small spaces. For our first-year students, it will be the first time that many of them have shared a room with another person. It's also the first time that many of our students have bumped up against so much diversity. Over the last 30 years our residential halls have become increasingly diverse, mixing students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, mental and physical challenges, alcohol or drug issues, and a range of other characteristics or issues.

For the most part, too many of us treat residential halls as a functional place for housing students.

This is a lost opportunity. The next generation is going to inherit a world filled with civic challenges. In addition to the usual challenges of community building, they will inherit communities struggling under the weight of large social and political institutions that are not up to the task of the modern era. They also will inherit communities grappling with complex global issues manifesting themselves as local problems, including a lack of jobs, water shortages, and racial/ethnic/religious divisions.

To meet their civic responsibilities, our students will need the capacity to thrive in diverse environments, embrace change as a daily reality, think outside boxes and across categories, and possess a mix of personal attributes, including humility, confidence, persistence, empathy, and communication and conflict negotiation skills. Residential halls are great places for some of this learning to occur.

Take two examples:

A typical roommate conflict takes the following form. Students get annoyed. Rather than tell their roommates, they often text their friends and/or use cell phones to call their parents. Eventually they talk to a resident adviser (RA) or a member of our staff. By the time they confront their roommate, they are angry and often voice the annoyance in a way that few people could hear. Everyone gets angry. Friends take sides, and the hall becomes divided. Paid professionals then step in to solve the problem. Sometimes we move one of the students. Other times we create rules that allow for people to share space by minimizing social interaction. Rather than viewing roommate conflicts as problems to be solved, we should see them as moments to teach students the habits and skills of civil discourse. Roommate conflicts are opportunities for students to learn to voice problems, to hear different views, and to reconcile competing views into an action or policy. Part of living in a free society is learning to live and work with people you may not like. The roommate who is "driving us crazy" will someday be our neighbor, family member, coworker, or ally in a local issue.

A second example is the typical problem of late-night noise on a residence hall floor. Under the current model, students learn poor civic responses that mirror large society. First, the individual approaches the group that is making a lot of noise. When that does not work, students call the local authorities, often campus security or RAs. If this does not work, they lump it by either finding another place to study or learning to live with it.

Another approach would be for our students to be coached to organize their neighbors to solve the problem. Most often, late-night noise results from a few students going too far on a regular basis. Everybody on the hall knows the source of the problem. The majority of students don't want the constant nighttime ruckus and its associated problems. We should help students learn to mobilize their peers to develop and carry out creative solutions. In the process, students will learn to work in groups, develop the arts of creative problem solving and project implementation, and acquire the skills of persistence, communication and conflict negotiation. They also will learn to hold their peers accountable when they are acting against the interest of the community, a skill that is sorely lacking in American society.

Disruption within residential halls is important. Often those making the noise operate from a place of privilege that is associated with class, constructions of gender and its expression, and truisms about college life. As they get louder, the rest get smaller, quieter, and more isolated. By training and encouraging civic action, we help a generation learn to become stronger and louder, not quieter, in the face of clashing culture norms. This is tough stuff, but it uniquely prepares students to be effective in democratic settings.

What do we need to do? We can start by trusting and investing in our residential staff. Much of what I wrote above is known to our students and staff working in residential halls. We have a fantastic generation of people choosing to work in our halls, both as students and professionals.They know a lot about campus culture. We need to recognize them and elevate the work they do in three ways.

First, we need to focus on a different kind of training. Most staff members have received training in student development, which they pass along to our student RAs. But very few have been trained as community organizers. This may seem like a small shift, but it requires training students and staff to use techniques and processes of community organizing. People trained this way know how to canvass a neighborhood and conduct one-on-one conversations with people who hold different views. And they are well equipped to facilitate contentious meetings, set agendas, and keep people organized and aligned over time. They understand the art of framing an issue and are adept at seeking allies in unexpected places.

Second, we should adopt and use the language of civic action. We often use the concept of community when talking about residential halls, but then we juxtapose the language of rules and processes. Effectively, our nomenclature in halls mixes frameworks of civic engagement with language of social control and bureaucratic management. There is a rich language used by people engaged in community work that is powerful, historic, and largely absent on our campuses. We might more forcefully use terms like community council, civic agency, and public work.

Language is connected to action. A community that is alive with civic action is a messy place that is filled with competing views, publicly contested issues, and engaged citizens. Civic action takes time. It also requires space to problem-solve. To transform our residence halls into sites for civic learning, we would need to de-layer our halls of rules and processes. We would move away from approaches where professionals act on people — and move toward civic approaches, where residential hall leaders understand the art of coaching students to engage in community building. We would take an experiential approach, giving students space and time to learn by doing. Sometimes our students would get it wrong. This would lead to some messiness and, often, to some conflict. We would see these as positive learning moments and not messy moments to be avoided.

All of this would require some give and take across the campus. In tight budget times, we would be asking a range of constituencies to support an intentional channeling of resources to residence halls as educational sites that complement and leverage learning elsewhere. We also would be asking our residential hall staff to embrace new ways of thinking, including giving up some of the rules and processes.

I spent the last eight years working for an organization on the front lines of global issues. We worked with young people from more than 140 countries who want to build healthy communities that can address the critical global issues that will shape the future. Our students were fighting for human rights in Yemen, working on public health issues across Africa, and addressing issues of poverty and race in the United States. As I watched them struggle, I was struck by how many of them had wonderful hearts but lacked the skills of civic action and community building. I also was struck by how many of them had spent time on our campuses.

I will admit that I am writing this a few days after my wife and I hosted a dinner for 70 students who serve as resident advisers and head residents, along with our amazing residential life staff. Talking to them, I was moved by their passions and talents. And I was intrigued by the thought of what they could do if trained and empowered as civic actors.

Adam Weinberg is the president of Denison University. Prior to this he was the president and CEO of World Learning. From 1995-2005, he was on the faculty at Colgate University, including serving as vice president and dean of the college.

Researchers identify two broad categories of those who borrow to pay for college -- each distinct from the norms of those who don't borrow. Both miss out on what has been considered the classic college experience.

Earlier this month, the federal Departments of Education and Justice reached an agreement with the University of Montana following an investigation into the university’s compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — an agreement that the agencies have said should serve as a “blueprint” for colleges and universities.

The administrative burden of following this blueprint is so great that it seems as if the federal government has forgotten that universities exist for a purpose other than sheltering 18-to-21-year-olds from offensive speech. Worse still, the federal blueprint defines sexual harassment so broadly that even colleges and universities doing their best to comply will remain at high risk for federal investigation and enforcement actions related to Title IX, and will risk First Amendment lawsuits as well.

The blueprint consists of two key documents: a 31-page findings letter and a 16-page resolution agreement. And while the incidents underlying the Montana investigation involved sexual assault, much of the blueprint focuses not on assault but instead on harassment. The findings letter holds that the University of Montana’s existing definition of sexual harassment is too narrow, and that "sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as 'any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.' " The letter also clarifies that sexual harassment includes "verbal conduct" (read: speech) and need not be "objectively offensive." Rather, speech becomes "sexual harassment" when the listener in question perceives the speech as "unwelcome."

The resolution agreement then identifies more than 40 distinct actions the University of Montana must take in order to be Title IX compliant. (Of course, universities not compliant with Title IX risk losing federal funding.) These actions include:

Developing and carrying out a system for tracking and reviewing reports of sex-based harassment (which, under the government’s definitions, includes any subjectively offensive sexual or gender-related speech).

Ensuring that all university offices (except where confidentiality privileges apply) notify the university’s Title IX coordinator within 24 hours of receiving information about sex-based harassment, regardless of whether a formal complaint was filed.

Ensuring that the educational environment of any student reporting sex-based harassment is free of further harassment (i.e., further subjectively offensive speech).

Conducting annual campus climate surveys for all students, analyzing the results of those surveys within 60 calendar days, and working with a paid equity consultant to develop actions to take in response to the survey results.

Developing a monitoring program to assess the effectiveness of the university’s efforts to address sex-based harassment, conducting an annual assessment of those efforts, and submitting that assessment to the federal government.

That’s just the beginning. And should the university fail to take any of these and other actions in a timely manner, the federal government may take legal action. Universities reading this blueprint should be deeply concerned for several reasons.

First, the administrative burden of following the blueprint is staggering. Indeed, one cannot help wondering — upon reading the document in full — how the federal government expects colleges and universities to have any time or money left over for the pesky task of actually educating their students.

Second, the blueprint requires public universities to choose between the newly mandated definition of sexual harassment and upholding students’ First Amendment rights. While earlier guidance from the Department of Education emphasized the importance of protecting free speech on campus, the words "free speech" and "First Amendment" do not appear anywhere in the blueprint’s 47 pages. While failure to comply with Title IX can lead to a loss of federal funding, public universities will also face legal action for violating students’ free speech rights. As such, this blueprint leaves public universities between a rock and a hard place. Although the Department of Education has since stated (not to colleges and universities, but to those who wrote in to criticize the blueprint) that the blueprint is not intended to interfere with First Amendment rights, this belated lip service to free expression does little to mitigate the blueprint’s impact.

Finally, the blueprint defines sex-based harassment so broadly that even universities making good-faith efforts to comply will still find themselves at high risk for investigation and enforcement actions. For instance, the University of Montana had already undertaken numerous compliance efforts during the course of the federal government’s investigation — steps the government, in its findings letter, deemed inadequate.

If universities want to remain able to fulfill their core missions, it is time for administrators to begin pushing back against the ever-increasing demands of the Education Department. No one disputes the importance of preventing sex discrimination on campus, but doing so need not consume so many resources that it interferes with universities’ ability to carry out their core educational functions, nor can it require universities to violate their students’ First Amendment rights.

Samantha Harris is a lawyer and the director of speech code research at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

"Holding Colleges Responsible” is the latest example in a slew of articles – many of them quoting the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education – that are meant to alarm anyone with a voice, and the author’s use of selective quotes out of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights's response to FIRE only fans the flame.

At issue is whether the Education Department’s enforcement of a law and guidance that are designed to promote compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and prevent sexual harassment put free speech at risk. In particular, the recent cause for concern is language in the agreement between OCR, the Department of Justice, and the University of Montana, which the government called a "blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country."

Readers should know that preserving free speech and academic freedom and ensuring an environment free from sexual harassment are not mutually exclusive goals, and OCR has never published guidance or decisions that aim to limit even the most explicitly sexual academic material.

The issue seems to be the department’s acknowledgment that conduct that is not yet severe or pervasive may still constitute sexual harassment. OCR clarified in a letter to FIRE that only severe or pervasive sexual harassment actually violates Title IX. The department’s view requires defining sexual harassment broadly and understanding the difference between an institution’s obligation to educate and proactively problem-solve and the obligation to "bang the gavel."

The Office for Civil Rights's "Dear Colleague" letter from April 4, 2011 is less concerned with gavel-banging and more concerned with how the complainant is treated during the reporting and grievance process. The outcome sought is the elimination of the hostile environment, if one exists, and maintaining a campus climate free from sexual harassment and violence -- not the termination, suspension, or expulsion of each accused individual.

It is not new for an institution to encourage reporting so that it may determine whether the report warrants action. "See something, say something." Surely not every forgotten bag contains explosives, but because citizen bystanders are not experts with bomb-sniffing German Shepherds, we are encouraged to report what we see.

Despite OCR’s recommendation for broad-based training and notification of sex discrimination definitions and procedures, students and employees are not experts in this area, and they are not expected to be equipped to make a final decision about whether actionable sex discrimination exists. That responsibility falls specifically to the Title IX coordinator or designee under the grievance procedures. By encouraging reporting of unwelcome conduct, the coordinator or designee also has the opportunity to spot patterns, which is a requirement of that job.

Imagine that 10 students report similar instances of sexual harassment (unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature) by another student or an employee that, individually, would not rise to the level of a hostile environment. Together, this conduct is a pattern of sexual harassment behavior that may create a hostile environment in a particular classroom, department or residence hall. Certainly, at the least, it warrants a conversation with and training for the accused individual.

The Education Department and higher education administrators are well aware of the First Amendment and academic freedom. Encouraging the campus community to report instances of sexual harassment and leaving the evaluation of such reports to designated experts is appropriate and lawful.

Andrea Stagg is an associate counsel in the State University of New York’s Office of General Counsel. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of the State University of New York.